The discoveries, technologies and advances involved in
the
deals our editors and reporters write about each month sometimes hit very close
to home.

Such was the case this
month for Lori Lesko, who brings us a story
about Melior Discovery's partnership with the Rett Syndrome Research Trust to
screen drug candidates in an
in vivo
model of Rett Syndrome, the most physically disabling of the autism spectrum disorders
(see "Allies against autism").

Autism is a condition with which Lori has become intimately
familiar. In 1999, Lori married Mike Lesko, who is also a
journalist in
Northeast Ohio. Inspired by their work on a series of stories about local
couples that adopted children from other countries, Lori and
Mike decided to
venture into an international adoption of their own. After viewing a videotape
of Marius, a charming, 22-month-old Romanian infant, the
couple headed to a
Bucharest orphanage to meet the child they would rename and raise as Michael in
their Bedford, Ohio, home.

But soon after their arrival, the Leskos realized that
Michael was not the same active, mischievous child they saw in the
video.

"The video had no sound, so we didn't know that at 22 months
old, he had not spokenónot
even baby talk," Lori says. "We knew something was
wrong because he would race around the room and not look at us, but we put that
down to fright. He
understood Romanian, so we figured he would learn English.
He learned English within six months at home with us, but still did not make
the proper
sustained eye contact that would allow him to even mimic baby
sounds, much less speak."

Michael
would later be diagnosed with Pervasive Development
Disorder (PDD), a developmental condition on the autism spectrum, and the
Leskos eventually learned
from an international adoption expert that infants
who live in orphanages often have similar challenges because the lack of
interaction or touch in
overcrowded orphanages causes brain synapses to remain
dormant.

"This means a child does not
talk (no one to mimic); the
child cannot stand to be touched; the child will slap, pinch, etc., if you get
too close to his face; the child will rock
back and forth or stare at his
hands, refusing to make eye contact," Lori explains. "Michael's doctors and
teachers have been supportive, but his
doctors reiterate that Michael's first
and primary diagnosis is organic brain damageónot from being dropped or abused,
but from the failure of
relating to a human as a baby. To make a long story
short, autism is the diagnosis used because he exhibits signs of autism.
However, I don't think,
and have no way of knowing, whether his condition is
genetic."

As Lori continues to search for
those answers, she set out
this month to discover more about the work the Rett Syndrome Trust is doing for
autism patients.

"I now see more opportunities in terms of clinical trials
and different therapies to keep a child focused," Lesko
says. "But by the time
the FDA approves something, Michael will already be in his teens. The problem
is, the general public, and parents of autistic
children, seem to want to try
all kinds of things, like diet and drugs. But nothing really attacks the brain
in a way that would 'cure' autism."

Not yet, anyway. Let's hope the best chapter is yet to come
in young Michael's compelling
story.